Sir Norman Payne

Sir Norman Payne, who died on February 7 aged 88, was a founder of the British
Airports Authority and its highly respected leader under both state and
private-sector ownership.

Photo: TONY PRIME

6:22PM GMT 18 Feb 2010

He made his name as a civil engineer working on the design and construction of Gatwick Airport before being recruited in 1965 as director of engineering in the newly-formed BAA, which took over from the Ministry of Aviation the running of Heathrow, Gatwick, Prestwick and what was then a small airfield at Stansted.

The first phase of the authority's existence was occupied with seemingly endless debates – in which Payne, who moved on to be head of planning, played a central role – over the siting of a third London airport. Stansted was initially favoured, but environmental objections prevailed, and the 1969 Roskill Commission came down in favour of Cublington, near Leighton Buzzard in Buckinghamshire.

When opinion shifted again, Conservative ministers of the early 1970s declared themselves for Maplin Sands, a Ministry of Defence property off Foulness Island in Essex. Although the site was 55 miles from central London, air traffic projections were alarming."The need for Maplin is imperative," Payne declared after he became chief executive of BAA in 1972.

Maplin was to have included a container port and a new town as well as an airport, but the economic crisis of 1973-74 put paid to the entire scheme. By the time Payne succeeded as chairman of BAA in 1977, prospects for any large-scale new airport were, in his words, "remote". His focus was on the expansion of Heathrow – an aspiration that was realised with the opening of Terminal Four in 1986 – as well as the building of the North Terminal at Gatwick and the expansion of Stansted, which was subject to a particularly hard-fought public inquiry.

Meanwhile, the day-to-day airport operations, under Payne's firm hand, were increasingly profitable: though BAA tended to lose money on aircraft landing and handling fees, it gained – too richly, according to its critics – from retail concessions and duty-free sales.

Payne himself was a bulky, sober-suited figure with a reticent manner but a toughness in negotiation that made him the bête noire not only of Stansted's objectors but also of US airline bosses seeking more favourable operating terms at Heathrow. "Norman eats airlines," a BAA colleague once observed.

Revered by his own managers and well-regarded by a succession of transport ministers, Payne served as chairman of the Nationalised Industries' Chairmen's Group, and was at one stage tipped as a front-runner to run British Rail. By 1983, BAA was handling 50 million passengers a year through seven airports and was an attractive candidate for privatisation. Payne welcomed the prospect of commercial freedom, but argued against suggestions that the business should be split up, with separate owners for each of the major airports.

The flotation was held back to allow British Airways to come to the market first, and then for the May 1987 general election; but it went ahead successfully in July 1987, raising £1.3 billion for the Exchequer.

By that stage, Payne noted, he had dealt with 10 secretaries of state and 13 permanent secretaries, "and had good relations with all of them". He was also past retirement age, but his continuing presence reassured investors as BAA embarked on its new life in the private sector.

There were still battles to be fought, however. BAA – and Payne personally – faced a storm of criticism over airport security following the Lockerbie bombing in December 1988. The ill-fated Pan Am Flight 103 had taken off from Heathrow, where the bomb had been loaded on board after transit from Frankfurt. It was eventually established that BAA had not been responsible for searching the luggage which contained it. There were also accusations of excessive charges for airport facilities, including parking.

In 1989 Payne temporarily had to resume hands-on management after the sudden departure of his chief executive over "policy differences"; and the following year he had to fight off a threatened bid for the company by Michael (now Lord) Ashcroft, who had built up a powerful shareholding. But the last public act of Payne's chairmanship, in March 1991, was a celebratory one – the opening by the Queen of Norman Foster's graceful new terminal building which marked the conclusion of Payne's long campaign for the development of Stansted.

Norman John Payne was born in London on October 9 1921, the son of a manager of the Blue Circle cement company. He was educated at John Lyon School in Harrow, where he was head boy, and City and Guilds College – though he cut short his studies by volunteering for the Royal Engineers on the day war broke out in 1939.

He was sent for officer-training in India, and in due course joined the Indian Army's 15th Engineering Battalion. His unit was flown into northern Burma at Myitkyina to provide engineering support for the American force there. Payne worked on the rebuilding of the railway to Mandalay, and on roads and bridges for armoured columns.

On one occasion American engineers told him that they had taken measurements for a vital bridge and were awaiting the arrival of prefabricated sections from up the line. Payne and his men curtailed the delay by cutting green timber from the jungle, transporting it to site by elephant, and building an instant bridge – which, to the Americans' surprise, readily took the weight of advancing tanks.

The unit went on to similar assignments in the Shan States to the east, where scattered elements of the retreating Japanese were still active. Payne modestly described his experiences in Burma as "a bit hairy"; he was twice mentioned in despatches and was appointed MBE (military) in 1944.

Having been demobilised as a captain, he returned to study at Imperial College, taking first-class honours in Civil Engineering in 1949. He joined the firm of Sir Frederick Snow, becoming a partner in 1955 and serving as resident engineer for the main construction phase of Gatwick Airport between 1955 and 1957 – his reputation as a hard taskmaster had its origins in the story that, as project deadlines loomed, he demanded contractors' attendance at Sunday-morning site meetings.

He was appointed OBE for his work at Gatwick in 1956, and the airport – which by the end of Payne's BAA tenure had overtaken New York's JFK as the world's second busiest after Heathrow – was to remain very much his pride and joy.

He went on to work on the design of Newcastle Airport, as well as others in Spain and the Middle East – and was an obvious choice for the BAA team when it was formed.

Norman Payne was raised to CBE in 1976 and knighted in 1985.

He was president of the Chartered Institute of Transport and the West European Airports Association, and a founder of the Aviation Club, which provided a private forum for leaders on all sides of the air transport industry. When he left the chair of BAA in 1991, he retired completely – to enjoy gardening in the south of France and later in Guernsey.

He married, in 1946, Pamela Wallis, from whom he was separated in the mid-1980s but never divorced; she died in 2006. They had four sons and a daughter.